When I left the movie theatre with my brother, we were silent for a while. I had thought it was mediocre, but a few minutes passed and he said: "That was worse than the prequels." I instantly started debating, and I myself cannot go this far, but some points felt valid. 20 minutes later, I started agreeing with him, that in lots of respects, the prequels are indeed better. This kind of argument is admittedly very provocative and deserves a long explanation. A lot of these things might be fixed in the sequels, but I feel like this is a weak excuse. This list is not exhaustive.
HEAVY SPOILERS AHEAD
The lack of ideas.
My brother had watched the 6 earlier movies right before this one, and he hated that he saw no new ideas. When a different series would pull this level of plot rehashing, everyone would get rightfully upset, but instead, the 7th one felt like a long apology letter for the prequels with barely anything to add. The prequels told new stories, with a lot of focus on broadening the galaxy. The huge city-planet of Coruscant, the strong cultural divide on one planet between the Naboo and the reclusive Gungans, the scale of droid use, the very idea of cloning the best warrior over and over to win wars, the gladiatorial culture of the separatists on Geonosis, etc. I mean, yeah, the Death Star is a planet now, but what do they do with that idea? It just feels as if there is no reason to watch this again. I did watch the prequels again, however, because of....
The lightsaber fights
Think about it - as bad as the prequels were, the lightsaber fights were super entertaining, and they make Star Wars Star Wars, and not a generic sci fi movie. I rewatched the Phantom Menace scene of Darth Maul fighting in the reactor room quite a few times. Will someone watch the Force Awakens for the light saber fights again? The emotional gravitas of that fight at the end of Episode VII was absent for me, and it was not very engaging to watch. The hook was about the ownership of the lightsaber and revenge for the murder of Han, but the characters had barely interacted before, and every single light saber fight in the earlier movies has been more meaningful for me so far. The jumping around and the light saber acrobatics might put some people off, but at least it was fun to watch, and I could at least see why the fights held significance. Speaking of importance and context...
The part of politics in the plot:
I'm going to say something that is gonna piss people off. There was not enough politics in The Force Awakens. Many complained about the politics in the prequels being out of place, and I don't buy that. It was terribly executed and the plot in the prequels was horribly put together, but it had to be there. There had to be some political talk there in order for us to understand why the formation of the Empire was a bad thing, and why people are so desperate to stop it. Since the Force Awakens is an apology letter for the prequels, there are no taxation disputes and diplomatic envoys. What the politics stuff in the prequels established, was why people were upset with the way things were. It establishes important context on a large scale, that the Empire promises a stability that the Republic failed to bring about. It also makes the viewer understand why the cost for such stability was too high.
The Force awakens has a huge scale with several planets being destroyed and the galaxy being sharply divided, with sympathizers on both sides being present everywhere. The large picture, which I gathered from maddeningly small bits and pieces and deduction seems to be that the Republic was reestablished, but remained small, thanks to the rag-tag nature of the Rebel Alliance. A lot of the Empire stayed in tact and fell under the control of the First Order, the Resistance seems to fight a guerilla war from the inside of said Empire with some backing from the Republic. This, in itself, is a good enough basis for a movie. On the other hand, the Resistance seems to be a laughably small force by Galactic standards, hence I just don't get how a force of 20 or so X-wing pilots warrants the destruction of several planets which are only said to affiliate. The death of these planets and the sheer size of senseless slaughter should be a major plot point, but the death of Han Solo is somehow more important than the fate of entire planets. This is why neither of these sat well with me after I actually left the movie theatre - I felt emotionally manipulated. The plot seems to blindly aspire to the original scale, yet it does so by hitting the large plot points and not assigning them any value, cashing in on nostalgia.
Finn
Let's talk about Finn. Finn was one of the few new additions to the franchise and he has lots of potential as a character. That said, a lot of what makes the character interesting makes me rage at how it was utilized. The man self-admittedly turned his back to everything he ever knew because he had to kill civilians. Given how he was trained from childhood to be a storm trooper, this should at least cause some inner conflict. Great stories can be told based on this arhetype alone - a man who was conditioned from birth to serve, refuses because of an inherent sense of right and wrong that tens of years of training sought to eliminate. How is this resolved? When he turns on his former comrades, he doesn't seem conflicted whatsoever, he seems gleeful to kill the only people he knows. The very first scene with him a stormtrooper dies next to him, and we can see grief and terror in both parties, humanity. Just minutes later, Finn kills his former comrades without a second thought. When he is called a traitor, it does not affect him. He frankly does not care. Given this, the character feels like a sociopath. Neither does anyone question the morality of blowing up his entire planet, nor does he show an emotional reaction to destroying his life's work. On a planet of at least millions, how many potential Finns died? How many potential Finns did he personally kill? Also, maybe a nitpick, but why is a janitor part of a SWAT team in an operation of galactic importance? How was this his first offense? Did anyone else cringe at Han and Finn discussing throwing a prisoner of war into a chute, fully aware, even gleeful at the prospect that it would crush her slowly in a nightmarish way? How am I supposed to feel about this character?
Given the original train of thought, when comparing the characters of Finn and Anakin, one should think about the time Anakin took to execute Dooku. It was very important to the progression of the plot, and a big deal. Him killing the Tuscan Raiders was appropriately framed as an evil deed. As a character, he was wooden, and made for bad cinema, but I could at least understand where he was coming from. Finn, however? Not so much.
The Force
Star Wars, through the concept of "the Force" at least partly reflects the esoteric pacifist world view popular in the 70's, and this should be more controversial than it is. While not part of the Movie franchise, the Knights of The Old Republic games did a great job at discussing the nature of the Force and expanded the concepts of Sith and Jedi with thousands of small nuances. The prequels did it too: In the Phantom Menace, Yoda's monologue about emotions leading to the dark side has been ridiculed a lot, and for good reason, but it is derived from western interpretations of eastern thought very common in the 70-s, and one can easily argue against such a world view. It makes whatever opposes the Jedi more relatable and the Jedi seem haughty. The heavy reliance of tradition and isolation in the Jedi creed in attack of the clones is examined and adds further grey tones. Finally, in Revenge of the Sith, Anakin's ignorance of the dark side leads to a quite interesting exchange about the inherent desire to innovate and improve of the Sith, which was contrasted with the stagnant and seemingly cowardly teachings of the Jedi. This is completely absent in the new movie and this makes the whole plot incredibly shallow.
In The Force awakens, the Sith want to kill the Jedi so that there won't be Jedi to oppose them. The Jedi want to create more Jedi so as to oppose the Sith. Both are obsessed with the other while neither's reasoning is really explained. If I were a new viewer, I would have lots of questions at the start of the trilogy. What is the significance of the new Jedi Order collapsing? Why is Luke so important? He is a mythical symbol, nothing more, with things as they stand alone. More than anything, the Force only fills the role of deus ex machina in this movie, and the "it's magic so we don't have to explain it" approach to the Force is still not as bad as the whole midichlorians thing, BUT Rey becomes Force Jesus in a way that contradicts all established canon.
The Good I didn't focus on the good things because so many positive things are being said in the reviews that I could not possibly phrase better. The acting is great, the feel of the first half was so right, the meshing of the new with the old worked out very well, especially with Han. Leia barely has anything to do, but her character feels so right, and even though the humor felt a bit forced at times (I have the same complaints about the Marvel movies, it's probably just me being too nitpicky), a lot of character moments were on par if not better than the ones in the originals.
I am not a professional critic and I might be wrong. Please make me love this movie, I really want to.
Actually, lightsaber fights in the prequels had no significance, because they happened so often. Yoda jumping around like a monkey with a lightsaber completely destroyed everything Yoda was supposed to be. They were so over-choreographed that it was unrealistic and completely without tension. All the tension was created by visuals and overcomplication. The Anakin-Obi-Wan fight was like 30 fucking minutes.
The original movies didn't have any of that fancy shit. The fights were simple and raw, which is what this movie tried to re-create. I don't think the fights had as much gravitas personally, but it was significantly improved over the prequels.
I saw the movie, thought it was OK at first. And now, the more I think about it, the less I actually like it.
The acting, CGI, directing, etc... are good. Better than what I was expecting. And that makes it a good movie. But is it a good Star Wars ? The scenario could have used another year of polishing. I feel like they rushed the movie out (gotta make them $$) and while they had good ideas, they didn't really exploit them correctly. The bypassing of the shield through Hyperspace for example is ridiculous. I mean if it was that simple, why did no one else ever use this tactic ? Why not use it with the Death Star in Episode 6 ? Not only is it not plausible in the Star Wars universe, but this also contradicts what the 6 first movies established on this matter. They should have used more time to come up with something better.
Another example of this movie contradicting/destroying what the other movies established is Rey being "Force Jesus" as you correctly say. Luke had a rushed training (several months instead of several years) and he managed to become a Jedi because he was special and was trained by great masters (Obi-Wan and then Yoda). Rey ? She fights a trained Sith off without any training and figures stuff out (Force persuasion) as she goes in a matter of days... Basically making every Jedi who has ever lived look like a retarded idiot for taking so long to master it. Kylo Ren ? A Sith apprentice without a full training, manages to stop blaster shots in mid-air, something even Vader couldn't do. Finn, a non-Force sensitive, manages to survive a Light saber fight against Kylo Ren for several minutes. I get that JJ Abrams wanted his new characters to look badass, but this was done in a sloppy way which basically made everyone from the previous movies seem inapt and inadequate. I'm sure that with more time, they could have found better (and more subtle) ways to establish the badassness of their characters.
The whole plot also felt kind of rushed. I feel like they tried to fit too many story lines in one movie. There's two main plots happening at once (the quest for Luke and the desctruction of Starkiller base), making it hard to feel really emotionnally invested in either one. I would have like one of those story arc removed, and more time devoted to building up other parts of the movie. For example Rey's relation with Han. Kylo mentions she sees Han as a father figure, but from what we get in the movies, she knows him for what, a couple of days before he dies ? The whole thing seems... too much, and I would have liked more screentime devoted to building up that relationship. Rey's distress/sadness at the end would have been that much more credible. Same for Rey/Finn's relation. They seem super close, yet they just met acouple days prior. Every human interaction feels rushed. Even human/droid is rushed: Rey is a scavenger who struggles to make ends meet, and suddenly she saves a very valuable droid from another scavenger, sets it free and later on decides to not sell it even when offered something like 6 months worth of pay? That doesn't make any sense. Thinking about it for a few minutes, they could have justified this by making her believe the droid was worth even more than what that Jabba-like guy was ready to offer. But no, instead she rejects his offer with no apparent reason, except that... well, she's the hero and if the movie is gonna move forward, she needs to keep the droid. That's litterally the only reason, and it doesn't make sense in the plot.
It's a good movie, and I enjoyed it while watching it. But the more I think about it, the more I start to dislike it. Your points about the second trilogy expanding the old one are very good. This movie doesn't expand anything, it overwrites what has been established. And that's painful.
On December 21 2015 19:12 NukeD wrote: Worse than prequells? Get real dude. You've overthinked it so much that you lost perspective.
It is not a perfect movie by any means, but it is definitelly not worse than prequells.
I believe people are way too harsh with the prequels tbh. People trash the first episodes because it's trendy to do so, it makes you look "like a real fan". But I think the OP's question is more relevant than it seems. The prequels aren't that bad, and ep. 7 isn't that good...
actually phantom menace is one of my favourites out of the entire series. it's hard to make an accurate judgment of the cinematography, special effects etc i think, because there were software and industry standard limitations. they were just working with what they had at the time.
I did not see it yet but I don't like randoms becoming super strongs because hey it's cool, so after reading your long post Yoshi I don't really want to see it anymore :o because I'm sure that will piss me off.
I didn't like it at all. Like if rated in categories
Cast: 8/10 (Rey was really good, Finn and Kylo... dunno. Could've been better i guess) Effects: 9/10 (i liked that it was not all CGI like in Ep 1-3) Story: 1/10 (those plotholes and so much reusing stuff...)
or sth. Now i don't wanna be mean or sth, but the story was just plain bad. It's not even that i expected so much more, i actually had no expectations at all
On December 21 2015 16:38 Xeris wrote: Actually, lightsaber fights in the prequels had no significance, because they happened so often. Yoda jumping around like a monkey with a lightsaber completely destroyed everything Yoda was supposed to be. They were so over-choreographed that it was unrealistic and completely without tension. All the tension was created by visuals and overcomplication. The Anakin-Obi-Wan fight was like 30 fucking minutes.
The original movies didn't have any of that fancy shit. The fights were simple and raw, which is what this movie tried to re-create. I don't think the fights had as much gravitas personally, but it was significantly improved over the prequels.
What I meant was that there was a reason for these fights to happen, more often than not. In the prequels, they apprehended dangerous rogue operatives or settled vendettas thousands of years long, it was better explained what the fight was about. With Kylo Ren and Rey, I did not get that. Maybe I am too critical at the new and too forgiving on the other.
I had the opposite reaction to the movie than many guys. I thought it was a good star wars (excluding a few breaches of SW 'rules') but on the other hand it was a bad movie (storytelling, writing).
Also yeah, a lot of guys shit on the prequels too much. And I'm glad there are guys like me who thought the first half was good and the second half was meh.
I agree with you, it was entertaining for me, but nothing special, I saw it at 11:30 am on the releasing day, for the second part I know that I can wait for some time before I will go to the theather and I wouldnt feel bad. The best: Rey actress, really good. The good: not much CGI in the fights, nice. The bad: Kylo Ren, the weakest villain in any of the Star Wars movies. The worse: Rey, fucking OP Jesus with boobs. The worst: Incoherent powers all around: Kylo can stop a laser, not even the Emperor or Vader could do that, and then He, cant win a lightsaber fight after seconds vs a Stormtrooper, and loses vs a "Jedi" with a few minutes of knowing what the Force is. Rey, it doesnt even matter who are her parents, she is OP as hell, she could be the daughter of C3PO and still would be the most powerful Jedi ever. Finn: the most powerful janitor-stormtrooper ever, in the first scenes he is afraid of everything and suddenly at the end because he likes Rey, then he turned just skilled as Jango Fett. The boredom: third deathstar.. for real?
Pretty much sums up my thoughts, came out of the theater thinking it was ok, but the more I think the more I realise how bad it is. I prefer the prequels, at least they had the balls to try something and be different. This is a sterile EpIV remake with more cgi and less heart. Everything is bigger but the stakes are way lower and even the characters don't take the threat of a system destroying planet seriously. That planning room should have been somber and calculated, rather than Solo and Finn being flippant. It's a gag mocking the similar, serious meetings of the OT and undermines ep VII for a cheap laugh. The one thing I didn't really pick up on was why I stopped caring about Finn. I was really interested in him at the start cause of the betrayal and bloody mask. He had depth then they made him fall in love with Rey and Solo super fast whilst becoming an uncaring mass murderer, despite having grown up with the people's he's killing (and they made him a janitor for another cheap gag).
The RLM guys pretty much summarized what this is and how it related to Star Wars as a franchise.
Some Star Wars fan like to act like their franchise has always had a very complicated and deep plot, but it's mostly cool space adventures with likable characters with their quirks, and the popular 70's forward theme of writing about authoritarian governments and rebellions as a barebones backdrop for character drama.
So they borrowed heavily from A new hope, they made Rey into this inexplicably perfect character that's great at everything, she's better than Han Solo at engineering for some reason. SW historically sucked at female characters, Leia is as expressive as C3PO and so now they felt the need to just make Rey into this character that is so amazingly great at everything she does, the movie fails to build tension because obviously she can beat anything.
I've always liked Star Wars but I never understood why people think so highly of it. It was amazing as a kid, it was a masterpiece of revolutionary special effects, and SW7 was cool. 7.5/10, good.
It was flawed for certain, but I think that the issues most people have is that the expectations for this movie were well beyond what anyone could actually deliver because the EU and the previous six movies give people many ideas for what direction the series should go, and a lot of people end up unsatisfied. I admit I felt "overcritical" while watching it and that being able to see it without any expectations would have made it far more interesting to watch. I honestly find the movie to be much better than I originally gave it credit for. In general I'd say if you watch this movie Star Trek fan style (i.e. nitpick every detail), then you will be horribly disappointed because that attitude has no place in Star Wars. The OT is pretty cheesy and unrealistic in a lot of ways too. You will notice if you look at your points, they all have a lot more to do with what this movie does for Star Wars as a whole than whether or not the movie is good in and of itself.
Let's look at your points: The lack of ideas. In my eyes, the movie is a parallel to rather than a ripoff of Ep 4. Many plot elements are repeated for sure, but it seems to be done in a way that establishes the characters of the heroes and villains.
The lightsaber fights I agree but this really doesn't matter all that much. The thing about Star Wars lightsaber fights that makes them important is how they tell a story. Finn vs. the stormtrooper shows why he feels so afraid of the overwhelming power of the First Order. The fight vs Ren at the end shows how powerful, yet mentally unstable he is and how he still has much to learn.
Finn I had problems with his character but these weren't them. He's clearly an average foot soldier of an elite group of death commandos (he did sanitation because soldiers who fight have base chores too), and he feels horribly insufficient in that regard. He knows how powerful the First Order is and though he doesn't have the heart to fight for them, he is afraid to oppose them and he wants to run as far as he can.
I disagree about the fact that he isn't conflicted. On the contrary, he may be a little too conflicted to his detriment.
The Force Many elements of Star Wars in the OT were shrouded in mystery and revealed slowly and over the course of the trilogy. This specific trilogy deals with the nature of what good vs. evil actually is (as opposed to the OT where good and evil were VERY clearly defined) and I think your questions will be answered in time.
The Good I'm glad at least one other person mentioned Leia. Her role in this movie was very small but she did an excellent job in it, much better than I expected. She really does have a very good "elder stateswoman" feel to her.
On December 21 2015 17:45 LoneYoShi wrote: I saw the movie, thought it was OK at first. And now, the more I think about it, the less I actually like it.
The acting, CGI, directing, etc... are good. Better than what I was expecting. And that makes it a good movie. But is it a good Star Wars ? The scenario could have used another year of polishing. I feel like they rushed the movie out (gotta make them $$) and while they had good ideas, they didn't really exploit them correctly. The bypassing of the shield through Hyperspace for example is ridiculous. I mean if it was that simple, why did no one else ever use this tactic ? Why not use it with the Death Star in Episode 6 ? Not only is it not plausible in the Star Wars universe, but this also contradicts what the 6 first movies established on this matter. They should have used more time to come up with something better.
Another example of this movie contradicting/destroying what the other movies established is Rey being "Force Jesus" as you correctly say. Luke had a rushed training (several months instead of several years) and he managed to become a Jedi because he was special and was trained by great masters (Obi-Wan and then Yoda). Rey ? She fights a trained Sith off without any training and figures stuff out (Force persuasion) as she goes in a matter of days... Basically making every Jedi who has ever lived look like a retarded idiot for taking so long to master it. Kylo Ren ? A Sith apprentice without a full training, manages to stop blaster shots in mid-air, something even Vader couldn't do. Finn, a non-Force sensitive, manages to survive a Light saber fight against Kylo Ren for several minutes. I get that JJ Abrams wanted his new characters to look badass, but this was done in a sloppy way which basically made everyone from the previous movies seem inapt and inadequate. I'm sure that with more time, they could have found better (and more subtle) ways to establish the badassness of their characters.
The whole plot also felt kind of rushed. I feel like they tried to fit too many story lines in one movie. There's two main plots happening at once (the quest for Luke and the desctruction of Starkiller base), making it hard to feel really emotionnally invested in either one. I would have like one of those story arc removed, and more time devoted to building up other parts of the movie. For example Rey's relation with Han. Kylo mentions she sees Han as a father figure, but from what we get in the movies, she knows him for what, a couple of days before he dies ? The whole thing seems... too much, and I would have liked more screentime devoted to building up that relationship. Rey's distress/sadness at the end would have been that much more credible. Same for Rey/Finn's relation. They seem super close, yet they just met acouple days prior. Every human interaction feels rushed. Even human/droid is rushed: Rey is a scavenger who struggles to make ends meet, and suddenly she saves a very valuable droid from another scavenger, sets it free and later on decides to not sell it even when offered something like 6 months worth of pay? That doesn't make any sense. Thinking about it for a few minutes, they could have justified this by making her believe the droid was worth even more than what that Jabba-like guy was ready to offer. But no, instead she rejects his offer with no apparent reason, except that... well, she's the hero and if the movie is gonna move forward, she needs to keep the droid. That's litterally the only reason, and it doesn't make sense in the plot.
It's a good movie, and I enjoyed it while watching it. But the more I think about it, the more I start to dislike it. Your points about the second trilogy expanding the old one are very good. This movie doesn't expand anything, it overwrites what has been established. And that's painful.
I want to share my opinion about some of this and why I think some things have explanation.
Rey is heavily hinted to have some importance in the force early on. Every time someone ask who is the girl they change the scene without answer hinting that the one who's being asked know who she is or at least know something about her.
The Force Jesus thing can be explained too. Yeah, Luke took a lot of time to be trained, yes but hasn't any force prodigy. He simply was the only one (and leah) there was, so maybe he isn't that good with the force, and even then after 15 mins he's blocking lasers without seeing. The old jedis took way more time to train but because the order worked very differently and they didn't only taught about the force but discipline and the jedi way of living. Rey is good at fighting and maybe she is a prodigy or something.
She doesn't sell the droid to the jabba-like guy because she knows by that point it has something valuable and he's trying to find his owner Poe.
Kylo not destroying Finn immediately? He was toying with him. Go watch the movie again, Kylo is not fighting all that seriously with the way he holds his sabre and does his weird stuff while you can see Finn actually trying his harderst. Furthermore Kylo was hurt.
Rey isn't better than Han Solo "for some reason" She spent all her life in Jakku dissecting old spaceships and learning how they worked and what was valuable. And it is never hinted she knows more than Han Solo, yeah she fixes the Milenium Falcon but the guy in Jakku had put this thing on the ship (I don't remember how it was called) and Han was simply not familiar with that machine. Furthermore Han was never a mechanic, he was a bounty hunter, so yeah.
Oh and the fact that we never saw Vader or the Emperor stop a blaster shot doesn't mean they couldn't do it. Vader didn't need to, he had his sabre and armor, and the emeperor never fighted directly. You are overthinking that too much.
I don't wanna say one movie was better than the other but I think the pacing of the phantom menace was way better and they built up the action way better. You got a better sense of what was going as well because of all the politics even though we don't know why the trade federation was attacking naboo.
SW7 had better characters, better comedy and overall better visuals (The best fight visually thought imo is Darth Maul vs Obiwan och quigon). The tempo of this was movie was just to high, never a slow moment to build up the next event so you could get a sense of what was going on. Some "politics" ,as mentioned, is desperately needed and just general dialogues.
Additionally I don't like that all of a sudden Rey can use mind tricks and fight with lightsabers from the start, it should have been slowly been built up through out the movies. Every thing there is to say about Fin is already said here. Point is the original starwars had these characters that where weak but rises up against the odds and develops. If Rey already can beat kylo ren, where is the tension?
The Phantom Menace was meant to be epic but failed due to bad plot and characters. The force awakens has a much lower goal, it is simply trying to be a funny action movie and it succeed.
When talking to star wars "nerds" I thought Star Wars was about character development and rising up against the power in this super cool universe with the force and lightsabers. Turns out people are happy with only light sabers
On December 21 2015 17:45 LoneYoShi wrote: I saw the movie, thought it was OK at first. And now, the more I think about it, the less I actually like it.
The acting, CGI, directing, etc... are good. Better than what I was expecting. And that makes it a good movie. But is it a good Star Wars ? The scenario could have used another year of polishing. I feel like they rushed the movie out (gotta make them $$) and while they had good ideas, they didn't really exploit them correctly. The bypassing of the shield through Hyperspace for example is ridiculous. I mean if it was that simple, why did no one else ever use this tactic ? Why not use it with the Death Star in Episode 6 ? Not only is it not plausible in the Star Wars universe, but this also contradicts what the 6 first movies established on this matter. They should have used more time to come up with something better.
Another example of this movie contradicting/destroying what the other movies established is Rey being "Force Jesus" as you correctly say. Luke had a rushed training (several months instead of several years) and he managed to become a Jedi because he was special and was trained by great masters (Obi-Wan and then Yoda). Rey ? She fights a trained Sith off without any training and figures stuff out (Force persuasion) as she goes in a matter of days... Basically making every Jedi who has ever lived look like a retarded idiot for taking so long to master it. Kylo Ren ? A Sith apprentice without a full training, manages to stop blaster shots in mid-air, something even Vader couldn't do. Finn, a non-Force sensitive, manages to survive a Light saber fight against Kylo Ren for several minutes. I get that JJ Abrams wanted his new characters to look badass, but this was done in a sloppy way which basically made everyone from the previous movies seem inapt and inadequate. I'm sure that with more time, they could have found better (and more subtle) ways to establish the badassness of their characters.
The whole plot also felt kind of rushed. I feel like they tried to fit too many story lines in one movie. There's two main plots happening at once (the quest for Luke and the desctruction of Starkiller base), making it hard to feel really emotionnally invested in either one. I would have like one of those story arc removed, and more time devoted to building up other parts of the movie. For example Rey's relation with Han. Kylo mentions she sees Han as a father figure, but from what we get in the movies, she knows him for what, a couple of days before he dies ? The whole thing seems... too much, and I would have liked more screentime devoted to building up that relationship. Rey's distress/sadness at the end would have been that much more credible. Same for Rey/Finn's relation. They seem super close, yet they just met acouple days prior. Every human interaction feels rushed. Even human/droid is rushed: Rey is a scavenger who struggles to make ends meet, and suddenly she saves a very valuable droid from another scavenger, sets it free and later on decides to not sell it even when offered something like 6 months worth of pay? That doesn't make any sense. Thinking about it for a few minutes, they could have justified this by making her believe the droid was worth even more than what that Jabba-like guy was ready to offer. But no, instead she rejects his offer with no apparent reason, except that... well, she's the hero and if the movie is gonna move forward, she needs to keep the droid. That's litterally the only reason, and it doesn't make sense in the plot.
It's a good movie, and I enjoyed it while watching it. But the more I think about it, the more I start to dislike it. Your points about the second trilogy expanding the old one are very good. This movie doesn't expand anything, it overwrites what has been established. And that's painful.
I want to share my opinion about some of this and why I think some things have explanation.
Rey is heavily hinted to have some importance in the force early on. Every time someone ask who is the girl they change the scene without answer hinting that the one who's being asked know who she is or at least know something about her.
The Force Jesus thing can be explained too. Yeah, Luke took a lot of time to be trained, yes but hasn't any force prodigy. He simply was the only one (and leah) there was, so maybe he isn't that good with the force, and even then after 15 mins he's blocking lasers without seeing. The old jedis took way more time to train but because the order worked very differently and they didn't only taught about the force but discipline and the jedi way of living. Rey is good at fighting and maybe she is a prodigy or something.
She doesn't sell the droid to the jabba-like guy because she knows by that point it has something valuable and he's trying to find his owner Poe.
Kylo not destroying Finn immediately? He was toying with him. Go watch the movie again, Kylo is not fighting all that seriously with the way he holds his sabre and does his weird stuff while you can see Finn actually trying his harderst. Furthermore Kylo was hurt.
Rey isn't better than Han Solo "for some reason" She spent all her life in Jakku dissecting old spaceships and learning how they worked and what was valuable. And it is never hinted she knows more than Han Solo, yeah she fixes the Milenium Falcon but the guy in Jakku had put this thing on the ship (I don't remember how it was called) and Han was simply not familiar with that machine. Furthermore Han was never a mechanic, he was a bounty hunter, so yeah.
Oh and the fact that we never saw Vader or the Emperor stop a blaster shot doesn't mean they couldn't do it. Vader didn't need to, he had his sabre and armor, and the emeperor never fighted directly. You are overthinking that too much.
Like I said in the other thread, you can explain everything in SW world like you, but your explanations are weak, too many maybes, and saying that Luke, son of Anakin, the one who was beating Vader is not good with the Force is a big lol.
I *generally* agree with a lot of the issues you have with the movie. But the prequel lightsaber fights were awful. Just awful. The combatants always seem to be more interested in showing off neat moves than actually killing each other (because Lucas wanted them to show off neat moves). The two best examples of this are the TPM Maul/Qui-gon/Obi-wan and RotS Obi-wan/Anakin lightsaber fights which are just vapid emotionless ballet dancing.
I think maul vs obi and qui was the best fight , the spinning fitted mauls style. But other than that I agree with you. But if one is gonna be critical of those moment you also have to be critical of certain no look, no scope mlg headshots by Fin and Han, not to mention some of the flying maneuvers.
On December 22 2015 05:11 NukeD wrote: I actually watched the prequell lightsaber duels because of this blog. They are as bad as I remember, some even worse.
Look at the 03:00 mark of this clip to have a laugh. LOL. Wtf is that?
On December 22 2015 05:11 NukeD wrote: I actually watched the prequell lightsaber duels because of this blog. They are as bad as I remember, some even worse.
Look at the 03:00 mark of this clip to have a laugh. LOL. Wtf is that?
On December 22 2015 05:11 NukeD wrote: I actually watched the prequell lightsaber duels because of this blog. They are as bad as I remember, some even worse.
Look at the 03:00 mark of this clip to have a laugh. LOL. Wtf is that?
i disagree with you guys on the anakin vs obiwan fight. what's wrong with them being caught in a motion? haven't you ever seen end game BW ZvT, where there are massive mech lines vs zerg and the two players can't immediately attack because the situation doesn't call for it? or haven't you ever watched professional GO players, where there can be move chains that are derived from positioning that go on for dozens of turns, just from pure momentum? from the EU, obiwan is meant to be one of the most powerful living jedi masters (when it comes to dueling), and anakin is no different.. they also trained together for like 10 years.. if anything the stagnation of the fight is meant to show just how good each character is at what they're doing, and how well they're reading their opponent.. personally, i think episode 3 is the best starwars movie by a long shot, i think it blows empire strikes back out of the water. anakin and obiwan are much more compelling characters than luke and vader.
On December 22 2015 05:11 NukeD wrote: I actually watched the prequell lightsaber duels because of this blog. They are as bad as I remember, some even worse.
Look at the 03:00 mark of this clip to have a laugh. LOL. Wtf is that?
Still better then OT and Force Awakens lightsaber duels in terms of action wise. I didn't know people even complained about the prequel lightsaber fights, people bitch about anything prequel related.
The point you're missing is that it's not the quality of the swordplay that really matters. If that's all that's important, then Darth Maul's battle is by far the best because the actor actually knows fencing.
What's important is the story that the battle tells. Why are the characters fighting, and what's at stake here? The prequels have a rather generic "good vs. evil" story in that sense, while each of the OT battles has more depth than that (master vs. student, son vs. father on Bespin, Luke's fully realized Jedi power against Jabba, son vs. father again on the Death Star). The Obi-Wan vs. Anakin, Anakin vs. Dooku part 2, and Yoda vs. Dooku fights all had the potential for this kind of interaction, but instead to their detriment they focused on choreography and flashy effects. And a lot of the others were just childish action sequences with little to no deeper meaning, such as Grievous vs. Obi-Wan.
Finn vs. Ren showed a frightened nobody fighting and barely holding on against a wounded but extremely destructive dark Jedi. Rey vs. Ren showed Rey realizing her Force power and using it to defend against the same. Both the Vader vs. Luke duels were better for sure, but I'd say it's significantly better than Vader vs. Obi-Wan, which was still of higher quality story-wise than most if not all of the prequel duels.
For me, Star Wars has always been brain dead space fantasy stupidity that was fun. The prequels were not fun, tried to be deep in the way a high school kid would go about it, and simply had atrocious acting and dialogue with unlikeable characters.
This movie really wasn't that good, but at least it was the funnish type of junk Star Wars.
On December 22 2015 06:50 Endymion wrote: i disagree with you guys on the anakin vs obiwan fight. what's wrong with them being caught in a motion? haven't you ever seen end game BW ZvT, where there are massive mech lines vs zerg and the two players can't immediately attack because the situation doesn't call for it? or haven't you ever watched professional GO players, where there can be move chains that are derived from positioning that go on for dozens of turns, just from pure momentum? from the EU, obiwan is meant to be one of the most powerful living jedi masters (when it comes to dueling), and anakin is no different.. they also trained together for like 10 years.. if anything the stagnation of the fight is meant to show just how good each character is at what they're doing, and how well they're reading their opponent.. personally, i think episode 3 is the best starwars movie by a long shot, i think it blows empire strikes back out of the water. anakin and obiwan are much more compelling characters than luke and vader.
One thing I will say is that some of the complaints could be due to the fact that the full story hasn't unfolded yet and as the context of this new story within the new trilogy is filled in things might make a bit more sense. I also think people hate on the prequels because they failed to deliver on the tone of the previous films. There was just a bit more charm from the camp that was in the OT while the prequels seemed like the sci fi version of a popcorn action flick that fell on its face trying too hard to add in that campy charm.
i just rewatched the maul-quigon-obiwan fight. it definitely feels a lot more visceral, and i can see the influence of maul's fencing education, but i still think you could explain it with story elements.. non of the duelists have fought each other for more than 5 seconds, and quigon/obiwan know literally nothing about maul, so of course the fight is going to be much less meta and to the point, they don't immediately know each other's weakness.. it's like playing with your practice partner vs playing with some rando, your game with your practice partner is going to be looking to exploit their weaknesses and looking to be cognisant of their buildorder library.. idk, maybe i just suspend my rationality too much if i think the overarching story is good, but i didn't find anything wrong with RoTS's end duel between anakin and obiwan.. i didn't like the anakin vs dooku duel at the start of RoTS though, because it didn't feel believable and anakin takes a baseball swing in the middle of it.. i also didn't really like yoda's dueling at all either..
On December 22 2015 06:50 Endymion wrote: i disagree with you guys on the anakin vs obiwan fight. what's wrong with them being caught in a motion? haven't you ever seen end game BW ZvT, where there are massive mech lines vs zerg and the two players can't immediately attack because the situation doesn't call for it? or haven't you ever watched professional GO players, where there can be move chains that are derived from positioning that go on for dozens of turns, just from pure momentum? from the EU, obiwan is meant to be one of the most powerful living jedi masters (when it comes to dueling), and anakin is no different.. they also trained together for like 10 years.. if anything the stagnation of the fight is meant to show just how good each character is at what they're doing, and how well they're reading their opponent.. personally, i think episode 3 is the best starwars movie by a long shot, i think it blows empire strikes back out of the water. anakin and obiwan are much more compelling characters than luke and vader.
This post gave me cancer.
Don't read the post before my one then. That would only make it worse.
Nope it wasn't in fact it was better than Jedi, and has probably one of the best fight scenes in the entire series with Rey/Finn vs Kylo Ren the Movie wasn't perfect and wasn't anything mind blowing, but it was entertaining well acted and had some really kick ass sequences and is worthy of the title star wars.
I agree with some of your criticisms, but def not that it's worse than the prequels. Those were all pretty damn bad. I give them points for definitely taking more risks in broadening the storyline, but the execution was bad on so many levels that I don't see anyway this movie could be worse than those.
Agreed this is not a perfect movie. i enjoyed it, I am seeing it again soon, I would say a solid 7-8. I think slightly more politics/backstory would have been good without compromising the cliffhanger. I 100% agree about the star killer - not nearly enough gravity to that situation, or the assault itself. Felt way too easy, just there to basically move the story and us closer to Han's death. There was enough action that the movie could have had some slower movement to deliver some more detail. This is still a total set up movie though.
Most of us here (assuming ages) didn't see the original triliogy when it came out and lose out on perspective of how the first one set up the trilogy, and left a lot of questions that were answered later. This is very similar to that. However, in trying to do that and please old fans with nods to the original, I feel they borrowed too much, bordering on a template swap.
Rey being naturally better than the force fits within the boundaries of the universe where some people can naturally do stuff like shoot lighting from their hands and what not. Vader as a kid was a prodigy unlike many others, way more powerful than others, but very raw. Why is it so hard to believe that there might be someone (most likely his granddaughter - luke's kid imo) whose raw baseline is much higher than other force sensitive people??
I also interpreted a lot of the big fight at the end being Kylo Ren toying with them at first and then getting overwhelmed when he realizes the depth of her power. I saw it mentioned in the main sw7 thread, but he's very desperate and alone, and telling Ren that he can teach her is very much part becuse he doesn't want to be alone imo.
On December 22 2015 05:11 NukeD wrote: I actually watched the prequell lightsaber duels because of this blog. They are as bad as I remember, some even worse.
Look at the 03:00 mark of this clip to have a laugh. LOL. Wtf is that?
On December 22 2015 05:11 NukeD wrote: I actually watched the prequell lightsaber duels because of this blog. They are as bad as I remember, some even worse.
Look at the 03:00 mark of this clip to have a laugh. LOL. Wtf is that?
Watched that clip, and the first thing that sprung to mind was "wow, this is some seriously terrible acting from everyone present in the scene".
Going to see EP7 tomorrow. Not being a Star Wars fan by any stretch of the imagination I don't really have any expectations. I've seen all movies except EP2, and they were OK but in no way would I rank them among the best or most gripping movies I've ever seen.
I actually prefer the lightsabre duels of EPs 4-6: it was less spectacular but at least Vader and Luke were actually trying to hit each other instead of pointlessly banging their lightsabres against each other. What I also liked was how Luke never became superstrong: he was clumsy in EP4 and still a clumsy, terrible sword fighter in EP6.
It was pretty terrible. At least the prequels had some sort of inventiveness and the overarching plot was interesting, even if the execution was rubbish.
When they murdered all the Jedi in the last prequel it was actually pretty exciting, I was invested. The whole finale with the Planet-Destroying thing, did anyone actually care? The whole battle seemed just seemed incidental, and the characters don't even to seem to really give a fuck about this weapon. No build-up, no emotional investment...
one thing i really hated, was the fact that the super larger death star destruction scene felt non-existant....the other movies there was a lot of build-up and scenes for it. The new movie's death star destruction felt cheap - and this is made worse because the new death star is so much bigger too.
Yeap, pretty much agree with all the comments here. I also don't buy the argument that we will see more in the next episodes. Episodes IV and I where fine as a stand alone movies in terms of plot. Sure, we knew that there is more to come but there was no need to scratch your head and think: "Maybe they will explain it in the next episode".
SW7 is forgettable movie, with really weak plot, poorly paced, decent acting, and nice cinematography. Unfortunately, we cannot enjoy the cinematography because everything is happening so damn quick. Wth? Can't JJ Abrams slow the action for even a second? How did it get 8.5/10 on imbd is beyond my comprehension.
EPT
